The Outsiders
By: S.E. Hinton
Over the summer, I read the book The Outsiders by S.E.Hinton. The main character of the book is Pony Boy Curtis who lives with his two older brothers Sodapop and Darrel (who they call Darry) and is 14 years old. Their parents died in a car accident and through out the whole book Pony Boy has dreams about them and how his life would be different if they were still alive. Darry takes care of Sodapop and Pony Boy by roofing house's, he is 20 years old. In the book, the boys are part of a gang called the Greasers. Their friends are Johnny, Dallas, Steve and Two-Bit. Johnny comes from an abusive home where his parents are always fighting. He tries to stay out of the house as much as possible so he is almost always at the Curtis' house. Dallas is from New York and known as the toughest of the gang because he went to jail when he was only 10 years old. Steve works at the DX gas station with Sodapop who is also his best friend. He's never been too fond of Pony Boy because he's Sodapops kid brother. Two-Bits real name is Keith Matthews but they call him "two-bit" because he always has to get his "two-bits" into everything.
The beginning of the book started with Ponyboy leaving the
movie theater. He's the only one in his family who was actually interested in
something other than fighting. He was walking home by himself when a couple of
Soc's (rich, middle class kids) called out "Greaser!" They got out of
their blue Madra and pushed him around. "Need a haircut, Greaser?"
one of them yelled out as he pulled out his knife. They held it up to his neck
and he realized that they could kill him. They suddenly just walked away just
as Dally was running up to Ponyboy, now laying on the ground, and picked him up
and shook him. S.E. Hinton most likely started the book with this scene to show
the situation and living conditions that the characters live in. This scene
sets up the rest of the story by showing how often fighting is used to solve
issues or just for fun.
I think that this book is a
good read for any teenager because it’s not like most other books. Most books
today are all about the same thing or have the same plot: They have one or two
main characters, a problem occurs, they solve the problem, and then the story
is over. The Outsiders isn’t like that. S.E.
Hinton really went into detail about everything that was going on in the story.
Instead of just having one problem in the main characters life (in this case,
Ponyboy), she had more than one at a time. For instance, Johnny killed a Soc in
a fight that had been started in the park (that’s one problem) then there was a
terrible fire at the school that was near where the boys ran away from the cops
to. Another problem was that after the fire, Johnny got fatally sick and was
put in the hospital.
This book has been a classic since 1967 and has been passed down
from generation to generation. It will always be a favorite no matter how old
you are. The situations and issues that occur in this book can be related to no
matter what age you are, there’s something in there for everyone. There aren’t
a lot of books today that can really suck you in and grab your attention and
make you hungry to read more and more, but this book does just that. Like I
said before, newer books all have the same plot and the same problems but just
different names of characters and settings. I don’t know of any book that has
been released in the past 5 years that I would read more than once, or I would
read on my own. The Outsiders will always be a “new read” to me every time I
read it because if you really enjoy a book, every time you read it, you get a
new meaning. I can’t wait to read the follow up book “Rumble Fish” next!
